Attack of the WereThing
by Elvish-Princess99
Summary: Kettleburn proves he's completely mad, Peter's caught in the cross-fire, and the Marauders prove that chaos can't exist without them. After an awful Care of Magical Creatures class something's loosed on the students. And this bite is worse than the bark.


_A.N: Yeah, my first fic set in the Potter-verse! And I went straight for the Marauders. And called it 'Attack of the Were-thing'. Mad. But, craziness **was** my aim. Peter is probably, technically OC here -although that's difficult with the lack of info from Rowling. He also takes Care of Magical Creatures. This will be important..._

Attack of the Were-Thing: Chapter One

It was a warm, dry, bright day. And it was Saturday. Such a combination was rare and this was why Sirius had wanted, nay had _needed _to get out of the castle. Remus, however, had opted to remain in the common room and had promptly found himself labelled insane by an incredulous Sirius.

He hadn't even bothered to grace this with a reply; he just gave Sirius a look appropriate to one who'd been labelled insane by a Marauder. There had been a large amount of disbelief in there, and definitely some amusement.

He'd laughed then. Loudly. Peals of increasingly hysterical laughter had followed Sirius, James and Peter as they'd left the common room.

When they'd reached the grounds, Peter had separated from the other two who were heading straight to the lake. He'd mysteriously only given an 'expedition' as his reason for departing.

A fascinated Sirius -who couldn't grasp the fact that others might not want to go to the lake on such a day- watched his progress, and realised his destination was the Forbidden Forest.

James noticed the not so subtle change of expression on Sirius' face and immediately proceeded to drag him away from the scene despite fierce protestations from his victim.

"We are _going_ to the lake, dammit." James hissed to his friend, eyes slightly wild and seemingly oblivious to Sirius' struggles which were admittedly growing weaker. This was possibly related to the fact that the lake had come into view and was glittering in a very tempting way.

When they eventually reached the lake -Sirius completing the final stretch himself, if slightly distracted- James was pleased to note that Sirius didn't give the forest a single glance.

Instead, he flopped onto the grass and closed his eyes in contentment. He was beginning to doze in the warm sunlight; the noises of students running, students talking and the occasional student flying into the lake -a safe distance, of course, from two of the most vindictive and skilled duellists in the school- were being gradually filtered out.

As a Marauder, Sirius really should have known better than to allow himself to zone out the surrounding noises so completely. Suddenly, to the accompaniment of a loud splash, several gallons of very cold water parted company from the lake and drenched the now sleeping Sirius.

Sensible students promptly took to their heels. Any lingerers quickly followed them, when Sirius leapt up, pure fury in his eyes and a hex he'd been itching to test -but hadn't yet been angry enough to dare- at his lips.

It died immediately when he turned to the lake, and the person who should have been his unfortunate victim. It was James. _James _was striding out of the lake, with sopping wet robes which were apparently doing their damndest to trip him up.

Despite this, the fury emanating from him was enough to clear the area completely and chill the bones of even his best friend -and battle-hardened- Sirius, who almost considered running then.

Marauders were hardly cowards, but they did see life-preservation as a necessary evil in extreme cases. But he knew that if he so much as moved, James would catch him and would, among much worse things, disembowel him.

So he stood where he was, and tried very hard not to imagine what he would be doing to James if their roles were reversed.

When James reached Sirius, he managed to engineer it so that Sirius now had his back to the lake with an extraordinarily angry James facing him.

For several seconds he could only glare fiercely and gasp for breath. "Do you know what happened?" he asked in deceptively calm tones that managed to promise unimaginable horrors- politely.

Sirius shook his head mutely, as if using his voice would make James angrier. That was impossible. James was apoplectic. And hysterical. "Snivellus!" he snarled, suddenly exploding. "_He did it! He threw me into the water while you just lay there __**sleeping**__!" _

At the end of each sentence, he gave Sirius a vicious push. Sirius was very quickly at the edge of the lake. "Snivellus!" James hissed, with a definite edge of hysteria audible. Then he pushed Sirius one last time and sent him flying into the lake.

Sirius sat where he'd landed in the shallows, robes quickly taking in water, dispassionately observing his friend who now wore the look of one who'd seen justice done.

Sirius _knew _James was right to have done it, he _knew _he should've been more alert, but still. He was a Marauder, and more than that- he was Sirius Black.

He stood up carefully, the weight of his robes á la water unsteadying him, strode out and levelled his wand at James and with a shout of, "_Paracorpus_!" James floated into the air and Sirius directed him over the lake. It was a deep part, and James looking down, knew it.

He immediately started fighting the spell, either not realising that even if he _did _break free he would fall or, preferring to send himself into the lake instead of being dropped. Whatever it was, he began to plead. With his free hand, Sirius directed the cries.

"Siri, that is overly cruel and unnatural torture even for _you_." Sirius' lips twitched as Remus' lightly amused words reached him. He plucked at his sopping robes. "I have reasons." he said casually as he faced Remus.

Remus ignored him and brushed some mousy hair out of his eyes in order to get a better view of the struggling James. "Let him down. I've a feeling _he _had reasons too."

"_Snivellus_!" The howl escaped James' lips as he was lowered to the ground. Something approaching comprehension dawned on Remus' face. "I saw Snape running from here like he'd seen soap." he said in explanation to Sirius' bemused look.

Sirius let out a low bark of laughter. "Bitchy, Rem. Pathetic, but bitchy." he said approvingly. Remus ignored him again and hauled a disorientated and very upset James to his feet.

"Are their any Slytherins around?" Sirius asked eagerly as they started on the path to the castle. Remus was silent as they continued. "Yes, not far from the castle." he said slowly. "But the only spell _you'll _be doing is a shield charm." he added quickly.

Sirius made to protest, but his mouth snapped shut at Remus' expression. "Sirius, I'll be damned- no, I'd _rather _be damned than let you drag us all into another revenge war. All this is because of those '_experiments_', and I want at least a _week _of peace."

* * *

Peter wished he was fitter often. But he couldn't remember wishing it quite as fervently as he was now. His lungs burned as he desperately tried to pull in some more oxygen, and he was sure that by now, his face was a mass of scars.

He was running hard, and he was running through -and hopefully _out- _of the Forbidden Forest. Around him he could hear, but not _see_, his classmates doing the same- _getting the hell out of here._

The gloom was almost complete despite it being mid-afternoon, and there was -had been- a ridiculous amount of outstretched branches. Hence the scars. This stupid 'trip' had been going alright until the last one. Not brilliantly -this _was_ the Forest- but OK.

They'd been trying to recapture the…_things _that Professor Kettleburn had brought in for his Care of Magical Creatures class to study. Peter couldn't remember how they'd escaped. He was glad of that.

Finally, he broke through the outskirts of the forest, and nearly threw himself onto the first patch of ground not within ten metres of the forest. He knew he'd only be able to relax fully inside the castle though, and only spared the fellow gasping escapee who'd just burst out of the forest a weary glance before staggering onwards.

* * *

James finally calmed down fully after they'd been walking for some time. Remus, noticing this, halted him and explained to him -slightly more gently than he had to Sirius- what they were going to do when they saw the happily nearby Slytherins.

James was displeased. "But I wanna tear them apart!" he protested petulantly, looking and sounding for all the world like a small child having a tantrum. If small children spoke about how they'd like to mutilate their enemies. Remus suppressed a shudder at the mental image.

"Well you aren't." he said firmly, poking James in the back with his wand to get him moving. "I'm putting my foot down after last week." he continued. "You were only in the hospital wing for a week!" "Matron said it was the worst case she'd ever seen!"

"Look lively…" Sirius murmured presently, seeing the Slytherins. Then, with feeling, "Oh, _shit." _Remus immediately grabbed James' robe, holding him where he stood.

"What?" he asked the very pale Sirius. "Snivellus is with that lot, and he's the one person Jamesie hates most in the world right now…or all the time, really." James was looking round now in bewilderment. He opened his mouth to ask why Remus looked so apologetic and was pointing his wand James-ward when…

"Why are they rampaging out of the forest?!" he demanded suddenly, pointing behind the other two, who immediately whipped around. Many students were indeed bolting across the grounds, clearly coming from the forest, all caked in dirt with many sporting leaves and twigs.

Peter was at their head, but was quickly being overtaken because he was moving at a stagger. The three Marauders waited impatiently while he struggled forward, being overtaken by what looked like every student in his Care of Magical Creatures class.

This distracted the group of very surprised Slytherins who'd been about to ambush the preoccupied Marauders, unable to believe their luck. The Slytherins had rather luckily been right in the path of most of the stampeding students and found themselves carried along in the chaos.

Peter's progress was suspended momentarily when Professor Kettleburn burst out of the forest and paused to talk with him. The Professor broke into a run soon after, leaving Peter to stop, swaying, in front of his friends.

"What _was _that?" Sirius asked him, flapping a hand vaguely behind him. Peter heaved a sigh, looked at him with unfocussed eyes and fell forward in a dead faint.

_So, what did you think? Er...does anyone know if Dumbledore would be headmaster at this stage? J.K. should write that prequel, if only to help struggling fanfic authors. Ah, and "Paracorpus!" loosely -**very **loosely- means, 'Fly body!'._


End file.
